Hello from Bahrain: Chapter 12                                                                                                           

 9/16/02

JUST A LIST…with comments

1. Temperature of 104 degrees…means it’s cooling down here.

2. Arab handwriting…they write from right to left.

3. Arab reading…they read from the back of the book to the front.

4. Incense…in this country this is a must.  They even have it burning in the entrance of the malls as well as all through them.

5. Oud…this is a very expensive incense. We know a couple who spent $1,000.00 twice buying some.

6. Drug Stores …most of the medicines can be bought without a prescription. They have realized that they need to control  the antibiotics so just recently the Pharmacies were warned not to sell them without a prescription. 

7. Mustaches…over 99 % of Arab and Indian males have them because they think it makes them more masculine.  I personally think  they need a shave.

8. Car washers…these are men or boys who are in every parking lot. They have a bucket of water (this is what the American’s here call a magic bucket since they never change the water) and a rag and offer to wash your vehicle for one Dinar.

9. Umbrellas in this country…are not used for rain but used instead to keep the sun off them.

10. Rain…Bahrain has one to five days of rain a year and usually during the winter months.  It’s more like a light shower.

11. Currency…In Bahrain they have Dinars and there’s only four different bills, 20 (about $54), 10 (about $27), 5 (about $13.50), 1 ($2.70).  They have about seven coins. These are called Fils and nobody seems to like to use these. I’ve been given a bill back during a transaction at a store instead of loose change since they act as if they can’t be bothered with it.  It makes me wonder if they can even count.

12. The Arabs (majority) think that the west (that’s another name for our country) is UN Godly people but this doesn’t stop them for wanting most of the things we have.  They especially love our movies and TV shows.

13. Traffic round-a-bouts…they have several that have three lanes and during  the rush time of day and night they have to have policemen there to direct the traffic.  More accidents have occurred in them than anywhere else.  They have become so dangerous that they have decided to build FLYOVERS.

14.  Policemen…when we first came here we were told during orientation that they had over thirty thousand policemen and guards. This is for a population of six hundred thousand people.  Well I’ve only witnessed two people getting tickets my entire time here.  They depend on the cameras that are set up at intersections to police people.  It’s not working.

This will be my last time writing from Bahrain. We will be leaving here on October the 26^th.

I do intend to write again when I get settled in back home.   I still have more to write about..

Sylvia